Over in Bangladesh, motorbike-taxi hailing service Pathao has announced that it raised a “pre-Series A” investment led by Go-Jek. The Indonesian firm first invested in Pathao last year, and it is leading this new deal which includes participation from existing backers Openspace Ventures — which just rebranded from NSI Ventures and is an early Go-Jek backer — Osiris Group and Battery Road Digital Holdings. [ Tech Crunch ]

Zubair Ahmed is a startup founder of Hishab.co, a voice based ERP system developed to help Bangladeshi population who are not tech savvy and are yet to use internet via smartphones. His passion for solving problems has made him leave the comfort of his investments banking in Tokyo to build up one of the most fascinating startups in Dhaka incorporating AI. He is also part of the new accelerator formed by Banglalink, one of the major telecom companies to help build the startup ecosystem. This intriguing talk gives us an insight how VUI will shape the future in the developing economies like Bangladesh and beyond. [ Youtube ]

Digital banking startup Revolut raises $250M at a valuation of $1.7B

Revolut, the London-based fintech that offers a digital banking account and sprawling set of other financial services, is disclosing that it has raised a whopping $250 million in Series C funding, less than three years since launching.

The new round, which gives the company a $1.7 billion post-money valuation — a five-fold increase in under a year, we’re told — was led by Hong Kong based DST Global, along with a group of new and existing investors that includes
Index Ventures, and Ribbit Capital. In case you aren’t keeping up, it brings the total amount raised by Revolut to $340 million in less than 36 months. [ TechCrunch ]

Women alleging sexual assault by their Uber drivers want to see their day in court

http://innovationcity.co -- Today’s guest is Matt Menietti, one of the big names in the St. Louis startup scene. Matt is the Executive Director of GlobalHack. Before that, he was part of two nationally-ranked accelerator programs; serving first as the Director of Operations for Capital Innovators and then as Venture Partner at SixThirty. A former St. Louis Business Journal 30 Under 30 honoree, Matt is also a former AmeriCORPS VISTA member, and a cofounder of an online
resource-sharing tool for nonprofits, GoodMap, that won seed funding through the YouthBridge Social Enterprise Competition. [ Youtube ]

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2018 VCs on Skis Panel: Cryptocurrency, ICOs & Blockchain Ecosystem

Exploring the emergence of new cryptocurrencies, ICOs as an alternative to venture capital and the furtherance of the blockchain as a secure distributed application platform disrupting many industries. This panel will provide some context for what happened in 2017 and what we can expect in 2018. Our panelists will explore the applicability of cryptocurrency as a viable option to fiat, the future impact to capital markets and technical considerations around the blockchain as a component of the tech stack. [ Youtube ]

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